Tambu Read online

  "I was more concerned with reactions from the people you'll be dealing with outside the force. I'm not sure how the merchants will take to being protected by the very people who were stealing from them not too long ago."

  "We already have a solution to that." Tambu smiled. "We'll change the names of the ships and crew. That way no one outside the force has to know anything about your past. In fact, there's no reason for anyone to know within the force, either. Your crew doesn't know anything about my crew's background or vice versa. There's no reason they should be told, just as there's no reason we should have to give any background information to the new recruits."

  "It'll sure make recruiting a lot easier if the new people don't have to admit to any past indiscretions." Ramona admitted. "Even though God knows what we'll get as a result. It's a little like the old French Foreign Legion."

  "It's not a bad parallel. I don't really care what the crew did before they joined, as long as they toe the line once they're under my command."

  "Discipline could be a problem," Ramona observed thoughtfully. "You know what would really be effective?"

  "What's that?"

  "If we made you into a real mystery figure. An omnipresent power with no face." Her voice grew more excited as she warmed to the idea. "You know how superstitious crewmen are. You could become a kind of a boogey-man. It could work against the ships we'll be fighting as well as within our own force." "And just how would we accomplish that?" "Hell, we've got a good start already! My crew is already spooked by the way you popped up out of nowhere and blitzed our ship before they could even get a shot off. All we have to do is keep you out of sight, and they'll do the rest. Sound doesn't travel through space, but rumors do. The myth will grow on its own. All we have to do is give it room."

  "It won't work." Tambu shook his head. "The one thing I do insist on is meeting each person who's going to serve under me. I have to know who and what I'm commanding if we're going to be effective."

  "Do it over a viewscreen. If you keep your sending camera off, you can talk to them and observe them to your heart's content, and all they'll see is a blank screen. As a matter of fact, that would help to build the mystery. Everyone would form their own impression, which means they'll talk about you among themselves trying to get confirmation." "I'll have to think about it."

  "Now is the ideal time to start," Ramona pressured. "Right now, the only ones who know what you look like are your crew and myself. If you wait, then you'll have to try to get cooperation out of the combined crews as well as any new recruits. The sooner you start, the easier it will be."

  "But if I'm planning to be on your ship-" "You can board ahead of the crew. There's a room off my cabin you could take up residence in without anyone being any the wiser. When they talk to you on the viewscreen, they won't know if your signal is coming from somewhere on board or from another ship."

  Tambu leaned back and stared at the ceiling as he turned the thought over in his mind.

  "It's a good idea," he admitted finally. "Maybe we can give it a try and see how it works. I'll talk to my crew."

  "It'll work," Ramona declared triumphantly. "You know, I think we'll work well together. Who knows? If we play our cards right, we might end up ruling the universe."

  "Who wants it? Right now I'll settle for eking out a humble, but substantial, living."

  "I know, I know. But when you talk to the new recruits, you might make some veiled references to a secret master plan. It'll help us fill the rosters if they think they're getting in on the ground floor of something big." "They are," Tambu announced solemnly. "The question is how big-and I figure we won't know the answer to that for a long time yet."

  INTERVIEW IV

  "Then your original crew was surprised by your plans of expansion?" Erickson asked. Tambu seemed tyrannical, even in his early career.

  "I had not deliberately withheld the information from them. The plan had been half-formed in my mind for some time, and I had simply forgotten to tell them about my thinking on the subject. If I had reached a firm decision before encountering the Mongoose and its captive, I would have discussed it with them."

  "How long had you been thinking about it before you actually implemented the plan?" the reporter pressed.

  "I guess it had been in the back of my mind all along," Tambu admitted. "I was always aware of the limitations of a single ship, both in terms of firepower and of coverage."

  "Coverage?"

  "One ship can be in only one place at a time. If the pirates could figure out where our one snip was, they would know where we weren't, and therefore where it was safe for them to operate. Three ships complicated the problem for them."

  "I see," Erickson nodded. "Once you had three ships, though, how did you deploy your original crew-the ones you could be sure of in terms of loyalty?"

  "Egor and Whitey were each placed in charge of a ship. I assigned Puck under Whitey."

  "Didn't that cause problems with Puck? Giving him a subordinate position while Ramona kept command of her own ship?" the reporter asked, eager for clues of dissention.

  "Surprisingly enough, not. I expected him to be much more upset than he actually was. Egor gave me more problems than Puck did."

  "What kind of problems did Egor cause?" Erickson pressed.

  "It was strange. I had expected problems with Whitey and Puck, but it never occurred to me that Egor would object. Whitey and Puck took the change in stride, but Egor put up an unholy argument. He flatly felt he wasn't qualified for an independent command."

  "But you changed his mind, right?" the reporter smiled. "Whitey had commented before on your powers of persuasion."

  "Not really," Tambu sighed. "I still maintain Whitey was wrong in attributing superhuman persuasive powers to me, and this is just one example of my failures. I did get Egor to accept a command position, mostly by pointing out there was no one else available with the necessary qualifications whom I trusted."

  "What about Puck?"

  "Even Egor admitted that Puck was too young for command. Not so much in years, but he lacked maturity. On that basis, Egor accepted command, but he never really agreed with me as to his qualifications." "So in essence, you forced your will on him?" Tambu hesitated a moment before answering.

  "I suppose you're correct," he said finally. "If that was an error, it's one I paid for a hundredfold afterward. I was constantly receiving complaints, both from Egor and from the other captains as to his shortcomings as a commander. He was probably the least effective captain who ever served under me."

  "Why didn't you relieve him of command, then?"

  "That is one of those hindsight questions we were speaking of earlier," Tambu admitted. "I've asked myself that a hundred times in the last few years and still haven't come up with a satisfactory answer-mostly because I'm unsure of my own motives during that period. Mostly, I think, it was because of friendship. Egor was my friend, and I gave him command of a ship because I believed in him and his abilities. To take this command away would have been a sign that I no longer believed in him. Balanced against that was my own stubborn pride. I didn't want to admit I had been wrong in my assessment of his abilities, and I sincerely felt that the problems he was encountering were manufactured by him in an effort to prove me wrong. I genuinely believed that once I made it clear that I wasn't going to remove him from command, he would resign himself to the task and solve his own problems. I saw it more as a test of wills than as a sign of incompetence on his part."

  "That must have been pretty rough on your friendship."

  "It was, particularly as the force continued to grow. As my time was divided across an increasing number of ships, my rapport with my original crew-with my friends-became dangerously thin."

  "I can see that," Erickson commented thoughtfully. "Even adding to your fleet by conquest, the number of ships would grow geometrically."

  "Even faster than that," Tambu countered. "Few people realize exactly how fast the fleet did grow. You see, not all the new
ships came to us as fruits of battle."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "You're sure she'll be all right?" Tambu asked again.

  "Look, will you relax?" Whitey scolded, her exasperated expression received clearly on the command console viewscreen. "Women have been having babies since prehistoric times. The hospital is more than able to handle any complications that might arise."

  "I still don't know why you didn't sign her into the hospital on Carbo when you were there last month," Tambu grumbled. "It's a better facility."

  "We aren't talking about a limb transplant," Whitey argued. "It's a childbirth, a simple childbirth. Besides, I tried to talk her into staying on Carbo and she wouldn't do it. Deny can be very strong-willed when she sets her mind to it. What was I supposed to do? Force her to go on shore leave and strand her there?"

  "It isn't your fault, Whitey," Tambu sighed. "I know that. It's just this is the first childbirth in the fleet, and I don't want anything to go wrong. I guess I've been taking it out on you. Sorry."

  "That's all right," Whitey shrugged. "If you can't sound off at us, who can you sound off to? Most of the new recruits would faint dead away if you talked to them direct, much less shouted at them."

  "It's not quite that bad."

  "Well, anyway, Pepe's staying with her here on Bastei, so he'll be able to handle any problems that we've overlooked," Whitey continued. "We'll be back in a month to check on things and pick them up if they're ready."

  "You're sure they're set on rejoining?" Tambu pressed. "Shipboard is no place to raise a kid."

  "I already tried that argument, and it didn't work. Deny was raised on shipboard."

  "But that probably wasn't a fighting ship. There's a difference."

  "We haven't done any fighting for a long time," Whitey observed. "Anyway, they both want to keep working for us, and I'm not about to stop them. Do you want to overrule me?"

  Tambu shook his head, then remembered she couldn't see him.

  "No," he said hastily. "It's your ship, and if you're willing to put up with it, I won't interfere."

  "Good," Whitey nodded. "Then it's settled."

  "She is registered at the hospital under her real name, isn't she?" Tambu frowned.

  "Yes, she is!" Whitey exclaimed. "And her medical records have been transferred from her home planet. That's what I meant in my original report when I said we were following recommended procedures. Your recommended procedures."

  "I'm doing it again, aren't I?" Tambu said.

  "Yes, you are.'' Whitey was still annoyed. "Do you get this wound up over everything that happens in the fleet?"

  "Not everything," Tambu admitted, "but a fair number of things."

  "You can't afford that-not with eight ships under you. If you can't keep some distance between yourself and the minor hassles of running a ship, it'll tear you apart in no time."

  "But if I don't keep track of what's going on-" Tambu began, then broke off.

  A small red light had begun to blink insistently on his command console accompanied by a soft chime.

  "I'll have to sign off now, Whitey," he explained hurriedly, "I've got a 'blinker' emergency coming in."

  "What's up?"

  "I don't know. It's from the Dreamer."

  "Puck's ship?" Whitey exclaimed. "He hasn't been in command for a month yet. What kind of trouble can he have gotten into that quick?"

  "That's what I'm about to find out," Tambu announced grimly, reaching for the cutoff switch.

  "Well, sometime when you get a few minutes, give me a call so we can talk about other things than business." Whitey called desperately. "We never just talk anymore."

  "Right," Tambu agreed absently, "I'll do that. Tambu out."

  He was hitting buttons as he spoke, switching the communications relays to accept the Dreamer's transmission. Whitey's face faded, to be replaced immediately by Puck's worried features.

  "Tambu here," he announced, forcing a calm tone into his voice. "What's the problem, Puck?"

  "I'm-I'm not sure it's a problem," Puck stammered in return.

  "Well, then, why don't you just tell me why you put in a priority call?" Tambu suggested patiently.

  "We've got a pirate ship here. It came up out of nowhere and caught us with our sails out."

  "How big a ship?"

  "About twice our size. And armed to the teeth. If it opened fire, we wouldn't have a chance."

  "Then I'd say you have a problem," Tambu announced grimly. "I take it from your comments that so far it hasn't fired on you?"

  "That's right. It's just sitting out there watching us. We've got its captain on the horn, and he says he wants to talk to you." "To me? About what?"

  "He won't say, but he says if you aren't on board our ship, we should relay his transmission to you." "All right, patch him through." "Will do," Puck acknowledged. "Should we try to get our sails in while you're talking?"

  "Negative. If he wants to talk, let's hear what he has to say before you try anything. Monitor the conversation, though, and keep your weapons manned. If you hear me say my name-the one I was using when we first met-open fire and try to knock him out before he returns fire."

  "Got it," Puck nodded vigorously. "Oh, Tambu, one more thing you should know. The captain says his name is Blackjack. I think he's the same one you met back on Trepec."

  "I see. Very well, patch him through." There was a few moments' pause. Then Puck's face faded and was replaced by the impatient countenance of Blackjack. Tambu watched in silence for several moments as the man fidgeted. "You wanted to speak with me?" he said at last. Blackjack started, then squinted at the screen as his hands went to the control dials.

  "Excuse me," he apologized hastily. "There must be an equipment malfunction. I'm not receiving a picture. If I had known you were standing by-"

  "It is not an equipment malfunction," Tambu interrupted. "For security reasons, my picture is never transmitted."

  "Oh," Blackjack blinked. "Of course. A very sound policy."

  Tambu smiled in wry amusement. As incredible as it seemed, Blackjack hadn't recognized his voice. The difference between the swaggering bully he had met on Trepe and the servile figure on the screen was ludicrous.

  "You said you wanted to speak with me?" he asked levelly. "My time is limited."

  Blackjack licked his lips nervously. "Well, sir, we've heard that you're forming a peacekeeping force and were accepting members who were... that is, regardless of their past records."

  "That is correct. And in answer to your unasked question, some of our crews have been pirates in the past."

  Blackjack smiled. "Good, because we'd like to join up. I mean, we'd like to become a part of your force, if that's possible."

  Tambu raised his eyebrows in surprise. This was a turn of events he hadn't anticipated.

  "I know this is irregular," Blackjack continued hastily, misinterpreting the silence. "But if you could just supply us with a few details as to what you're expecting-"

  "Why?" Tambu interrupted.

  Anger flashed momentarily in Blackjack's eyes, and his posture stiffened. Then he regained his smile.

  "I know it's an annoyance, but it's been hard getting a line on your operations. We figured maybe if we went right to the source-"

  "I meant why do you want to join. I was under the impression you had a lucrative business of your own going."

  "You've heard of me?" Blackjack seemed both surprised and flattered.

  "We have our sources," Tambu countered, smiling to himself. "It was my belief that you were a diehard loner. I fully expected that if our courses crossed, that you'd be taken dead or not at all. As such, I'm quite curious about your sudden change of heart."

  "Well, the business has never been all that stable, and it's been getting rougher lately. You should know that You're one of the reasons things have been going bad."

  "We have had some modest success."

  "It was shaky enough when things were one-on-one and every ship for itself. But now that
we're up against ships working together in teams or packs-well, let's say the odds are getting pretty high against us."

  "Have you thought of quitting?" Tambu suggested.

  "We talked it over, the crew and me, but none of us were wild about finding work planetside, and cargo hauling seems awfully dull after the life we've been living."

  "Besides, it doesn't pay as well," Tambu observed dryly.

  "Exactly. Well, anyway, we decided to go with the old saying...you know, 'if you can't lick 'em, join 'em. 'So here we are. What do you say?"

  "It still sounds like a rather abrupt change of face to me. I'm surprised your crew isn't more averse to changing sides this way."

  Blackjack shrugged. "Cops or robbers, the game's the same on both sides of the fence. The big difference is that playing it your way, we can mix with polite company."

  "Well, we haven't exactly been swamped with invitations to society balls," Tambu countered. "And I'd like to think there are a few differences between the cops and the robbers. The main one that comes to mind is discipline. If you join the fleet, you play by my rules. You'll be allowed to run your ship your way, but the final decisions are mine. No solo jaunts or independent action."

  "I know that. That's the price we pay for joining a group. Between you and me, though, in a lot of ways, it's a plus, not a minus. I don't mind at all passing the buck on some of the rougher decisions."

  "Exactly what are you expecting to get out of this?"

  "You don't buy the 'noble cause' bit, eh?" Blackjack grimaced.

  "Let's say I have limited faith in it. I think the best business relationships exist when both sides benefit from the arrangement. If you join, I get another ship complete with a trained crew. Now what are you seeing that you'll get out of this?"

  "Support. Both military and financial. Not only do we have allies we can call on if we get our ass in a sling, by sharing profits and losses, we stabilize our cash flow."

  "Now that's the kind of selfish answer I can relate to. For the first time, Blackjack, I'm starting to believe you."